Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Identity crisis

A couple of articles in Technology Review caught my eye this morning, because they seem to throw up once again the yawning gap which lies between what telcos are doing and what they could be doing. In this corner, yet another vaguely delusional article about IPTV (Fastweb, yadda-yadda-yadda - a reality check is found towards the end of this piece - and I love the understatement regarding Versatel: "the company may have overestimated the importance of sports"). And in this corner, a new start-up is trying to give consumers the ability to control and monetize aspects of their identity - and hoping to create a more targeted marketing opportunity for advertisers in the process. I know which appeals more to me as a consumer.